Friday, March 31, 2006

WINEMAKING is a tricky and complicated business, and winemakers are constantly in search of ways to make their work easier and their results more palatable at less expense of time, energy and money. The use of oak chips to imbue cheap wine with oak flavour originated in Australia, where winemakers tended two decades ago to take a very practical and pragmatic attitude towards their craft. At that time there was a vogue for the sweetish, toasty, vanilla flavour which ageing in new oak barrels imparts.

Wood chippings and even a splash of water will be allowed as vignerons fight to win back drinkers.AS FRANCE recoiled before the advance of globalisation and of English as a lingua franca, there was one area in which it remained confident of its superiority: its wines. Now even the vintners’ traditions are going the way of the five-course lunch, the Deux Chevaux and the surly waiter. After failing to hold off the onslaught from New World winemakers, France is to join them in such heresies as adding wood chips and — perhaps — even watering down the wine. The Agriculture Minister has issued a plan to let vignerons compete with growers in the Antipodes and the Americas whose simple flavours and clever marketing have been winning the world’s wine drinkers. “We have to make wine for consumers, not wine that producers dream of,” said Bernard Pomel, author of the plan, which is likely to be adopted soon as law.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Some time ago, a uniformed US Air Force officer from Nato headquarters arrived at Passion Chocolat, a tiny chocolatier in a suburban Brussels street, and threw staff into a panic by asking for 40 boxes of chocolate. Their efforts to accommodate him were rewarded a few weeks later with a thank-you note - from the White House.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Asda, Britain's second biggest supermarket, is removing North Sea cod from its shelves in response to the dramatic collapse of natural fish stocks. In a sign of how overfishing has devastated the once-plentiful cod off Britain's coast, the supermarket said that it would suspend sale of North Sea cod by July. It said the move had been influenced by attacks from environmentalists for its sale of endangered fish such as cod, which is heading towards commercial extinction in the waters off Britain.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Joanna Blythman talks veg with a man who plans to revamp our local greengrocers

The famously bookish inhabitants of Hay-on-Wye turned their thoughts to matters culinary this month, with the arrival of a shop that may well set a national trend.Fresh crop: 'We need to take a look at how we source and sell fruit and veg' says Charlie Hicks, the infectiously enthusiastic co-presenter of Radio 4's Veg Talk, thinks Britain's greengrocer shops are ripe for a revival, but in a reconstructed form.To illustrate the point, he has opened his own new-wave emporium in Hay.

Rose Prince looks at how to buy canned food with peace of mind and a clear conscience

We might have recycled-glass mountains, but the British are notoriously poor at recycling steel, even though it is a far more essential material.Canning is an enduringly popular way to preserve foods, surviving in spite of fridge-freezers, modified-atmosphere packaging and chemical preservatives.Our attachment to cans is deep-rooted - think of all those late-night hunger pangs that have been solved by opening a tin.

If you fancy a walk in the country anytime soon, take a pair of Marigolds and a big bag, and reap yourself a harvest of nettles. There is something hugely satisfying about feasting on wild food you've collected yourself - and few grow with such abundance. Once you've vanquished their sting, nettles are delicious and nutritious. They behave a lot like spinach and can be served in similar ways, but the flavour is less sweet, more earthy.

Pic St-Loup is a mountain that sticks out of the limestone slopes to the north of Montpellier like one of those pointed plates on a stegosaurus's back. It rises out of the herb-infested scrubland with such authority that it has given its name to the red and rosé wines made in its vicinity from (predominantly) syrah, mourvèdre and grenache.One of the fastest-rising stars of Languedoc, the Pic St-Loup wine region has not - yet - been granted an independent appellation contrôlée, existing for the time being as one of the so-called crus of the Coteaux du Languedoc AOC. But it does have an even harder to attain quality: buzz.

Just the thought of a steaming bowlful of my grandmother's pasta e patate waiting for me on my return from school would make me run home that little bit faster. This succulent and simple combination is found right across Italy, where every region, province and village - and probably every household - is convinced of the superiority of their own recipe.

Pernod Ricard, the French drinks group which last year acquired its larger British rival Allied Domecq for £7.4bn, said yesterday it was making better progress than expected integrating the two businesses.The group raised earnings per share growth guidance for the year to the end of June, targeting "the top" of its previous 10-15% range. Former Allied brands Kahlua and Sauza were said to be "struggling".

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver will continue to encourage the nation's shoppers to "Try something new" at Sainsbury's, after signing a new contract to star in the supermarket's adverts. The new one-year contract extension will take Oliver's association with Sainsbury's into its seventh year, during which time he has gone from a cheeky chappie "naked chef" to the high-profile and (...)

Parents were yesterday warned by researchers that levels of pesticides previously thought to be harmless could cause cancers in babies and young children.

Liverpool University scientists argue that low levels of chemicals from pesticides and plastics could affect the development of babies before they are born and increase their likelihood of developing cancer later in life.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Ever since Jamie Oliver revealed the precise ingredients of chicken nuggets in all their gory detail, our house has been a nugget-free zone. It hasn't exactly been hard - even my kids turn green at the thought of scoffing hens' private parts - but eating out has been trickier. Those pesky nuggets still appear on pretty much every kids' menu. You have to cross the Channel to escape them, and that isn't always convenient.

Take a lesson from a TV chef. Learn the art of the Moroccan dada. Go hunting for truffles in Tuscany... Ian McCurrach picks the best of a new crop of cookery holidays 1 Take tips from a TV chef 2 Bake bread at Le Manoir3 Cook couscous in Marrakech4 Make ganache with panache5 Take it slow in Piemonte 6 Shop till you chop in France7 Four weeks to cut the mustard 8 Try a taste of Mauritius9 The best tastes of Tuscany

Spain is the most innovative country in the world when it comes to food. It's also the most traditional. Try it in the capital, says the cookery writer Claudia Roden, where you can sample dishes from every corner of the country

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Whenever I am ravenous but in no mood for proper cooking, I turn to one of the most comforting of meals: noodle soup. This simply involves boiling up a savoury broth into which I put whatever's in the fridge - tofu, mushrooms, greens - plus a handful of noodles and some zippy flavourings such as chilli, garlic, lime and soya sauce. A steaming bowlful is ready in 15 minutes, it's low-fat and it's filling. But it won't work without the magic ingredient: miso paste. It's a fantastic refrigerator standby that can be used in all sorts of ways.

Before we learn how to cook, we must learn how to shopI don’t know about you, but I’m always a bit daunted when chefs go on about how we should do our shopping with no preconceived ideas and simply “see what looks good”. If we could be trusted to know what looks good, there’d be no shelf space for tinned frankfurters or microwaveable liver and bacon, would there? It is to deny the way we shop.

Friday, March 17, 2006

A veg stall in late winter looks very British with its spuds, carrots and cauliflowers. In fact, these crops have featured in the British diet for less than 500 years, and nearly all the veg we eat today - from artichokes to turnips - has been introduced from overseas in the past 1,000 years. Together with watercress, samphire, and possibly parsnip, sea kale is one of a few vegetables that are truly native to Britain.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Another bad week in a bad month for the food and drink industry. Sunny Delight, formerly the UK's third largest-selling drink, is to be taken off the shelves by Asda after plummeting sales, the supermarket said at the weekend. Yesterday it was the turn of Northern Foods, makers of biscuits, pies, pizzas and ready meals, to admit that the trend to healthier food was causing it problems.

There are only certain things that should come in squeezy tubes, and broadly speaking we can refer to these as toothpaste and antiseptic cream. Where foodstuffs are concerned I pretty much draw the line at tomato ketchup, and that vivid yellow American mustard. It should not include cheese spread, and absolutely on no occasion should it ever mean Marmite.

Marmite's getting a 21st-century makeover. Sales of Angel Delight are booming. Tinned meat pies are on the rise. Why are our taste buds drawn to the past? Jonathan Margolis tucks into a feast of nostalgia

Monday, March 13, 2006

The quiet Tokyo neighbourhood of Higashikurume is getting its 15 minutes of fame - all because of a root vegetable that doesn't know when to give up.Residents were amazed to find that a daikon - a thick white radish often used in Japanese cooking - had pushed its way between an asphalt pavement and roadside ditch, miles from the nearest field.

You'll either love it or you'll hate it - but Marmite is henceforth to be sold in plastic squeezable bottles as well as in those old-fashioned glass jars.This second option will eradicate, for some, the problem of the dark stuff contaminating the butter dish.But Marmite lovers may be alarmed to learn that its recipe is changing slightly - the spread will be made to a thinner consistency to allow for squeezing.A spokeswoman for Marmite insisted it would taste the same.The new container will be sold alongside the glass jars, although the smallest glass version will be phased out

Fiji Water is extolled by nutritionists and celebrities as the non plus ultra of liquids. Apparently rich in silica, it is cleverly marketed as veritable elixir of youth and health. And that's not all. According to its website "Fiji Water never meets the compromised air of the 21st century". What a load of old cobblers.

This crazy thirst for designer water is having a devastating environmental impact because of the huge resources needed to extract it from the ground, package it and ship it round the world. Some 22million tons of bottled water are transported each year between countries, according to the Earth Policy Institute.

Golden onion bhajis, crisp vegetable pakoras, delicate pancakes, super-sweet Indian sweetmeats - all these delicacies rely on a key ingredient: gram flour. Also known as besan, it is made from dried, ground chickpeas and is a common ingredient in much Indian cooking. Used in many of the same ways as wheat flours - to bind, thicken or coat other foods - its advantages are particularly great if you don't want to eat wheat, are looking for a protein-rich alternative to refined white flours, or are vegetarian or vegan. Many recipes that call for gram flour also seem to be animal-product-free.

GLIMPSED through its smoked glass windows, with its dim lighting and its watchful guards, the Cave du Chocolat in Isetan department store looks more like the premises of an exclusive jeweller than an upmarket sweetie shop. Inside, beautifully turned out Tokyo ladies hover over chocolates from Switzerland, Belgium, France and Spain that glisten like brown gold. The standard price is 300 yen (£1.50) for a single piece; the most expensive chocolates, containing foie gras, sell for 1,000 yen each. Prices such as these do not seem to blunt the appetite of Japanese shoppers, the most fanatical chocoholics outside Europe and America. But now a shadow is looming over the worldwide chocolate industry — the threat of a worldwide shortage of cocoa beans, caused by a sudden epidemic of chocomania in Asia.

The relentless closure of pubs by faceless property companies is an assault on our national heritage.The virus known as economic rationalism has infected Britain's pub industry. By the time the disease has taken control, much of the environment that so eloquently defines British culture and character will have been destroyed.Each year more than 250 traditional pubs are closed or redeveloped. The scale of the devastation is such that less than half of British villages now have a local. What was once a vital community hub has now become an endangered species.

Eco-gastronomy is hot. Meet a top chef who’s creating a planet-friendly restaurant It’s 9am and I’m standing ankle-deep in mud at Brown Cow, an organic Somerset farm, on a freezing early spring morning. I’m with the chef Barny Haughton, who has taken me to see a couple of his suppliers, the better to explain his ground-breaking new restaurant. Called Bordeaux Quay, it will open this summer on Bristol’s dockside offering a new approach to dining.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Hollywood's history is littered with tales of actors going to painstaking lengths to experience the inner lives of their movie characters. Marlon Brando and James Dean were known as champions of the "method" school of acting and Robert De Niro became legendary for the physical transformations he underwent for some of his film roles.Now, the British actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones, has joined the ranks of method actors by spending a week "undercover" in a New York restaurant to help her understand her forthcoming film role as a chef. The actress was reckoned to be "a great garnisher" at Fiamma, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan where she worked in the kitchens preparing food for unsuspecting diners.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. Once a term of mild abuse, suddenly rhubarb is fashionable. Rhubarb is sexy. Rhubarb is GOOD for you. Sales have doubled over the past year. It's beginning to crop up on the menus of some of our more elevated restaurants. You can even find it nestling under a slab of hot foie gras and crab tuile at The Fat Duck. This is a far cry from rhubarb crumble, rhubarb fool, rhubarb tart and the other homely manifestations that have been the mainstay of the domestic pudding circuit.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

It has been the staple diet of prisoners throughout history and is a byword for "doing time", but porridge is finally off the menu at many jails in England and Wales. Instead of being served a hot meal in the mornings most inmates are now getting a 27p "breakfast pack" the night before to eat in their cells next morning.An investigation by the national audit office, the Whitehall spending watchdog, was told that the breakfast packs were introduced "because cooked breakfasts are no longer part of contemporary eating habits in the wider community".

So porridge is no longer on the menu in British prisons. A sad day for old lags for sure. How we loved to queue on cold winter mornings in anticipation of a large steaming ladle of the stuff. And on warm summer mornings too, of course.In fact every single day of the year the one thing that could be guaranteed in an often bleak and uncertain existence was that porridge would be served for breakfast. "No matter what happens, lads, at least we've got porridge!"

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The crispiness of the bacon, comfort of plastic chairs and even the choice of wallpaper do not escape scrutiny when Russell Davies sits down to enjoy a full English breakfast. And documenting his love of the traditional fry-up and the atmosphere found in a British cafe has earned the London author a place on the shortlist for the Lulu Blooker Prize. A new literary award for books based on blogs or websites, Mr Davies' entry Egg Bacon Chips and Beans: 50 Great Cafes And The Stuff That Makes Them Great is among 16 books competing for the prize.

Malcolm Walker, the founder of Iceland who returned to take the business private last year, said yesterday that restoring the focus on "old-fashioned freezer centres" had catapulted it back to growth and allowed him and his backers to recoup all their acquisition financing within a year.Read more…

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Springtime in the province of Tarragona in northern Spain sees the harvest of the first calçots - delicious alliums somewhere between a fat spring onion and a small leek. In a festival known as the calçotada, these sweet vegetables are grilled until charred, then served with what has become one of my favourite sauces, romesco. A brick-orange, pulverised amalgamation of garlic, nuts, tomatoes and chillies, it's one of those things for which every local cook has a slightly different, passionately defended recipe - but all rely on one crucial ingredient, the ñora pepper.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Britvic admitted yesterday it had underestimated the impact of health concerns on UK fizzy drinks sales, revealing that the carbonated drinks market suffered its severest ever decline in the two months since the company's flotation in December last year.Saying the slump had been in the "strong single digits", chief executive Paul Moody said: "The decline we have seen this year in January and February has been more severe than anything we have seen in the past ... The consumer trend towards 'better for you' is accelerating."

There's a point when I start to tire of the seasonal veg menu. What were once welcomed as the hearty, warming soul of cold-weather dishes -swedes, parsnips, winter cabbages - become dull with repetition, and it seems ages before fresh, zingy spring produce arrives. Which is why the arrival around now of sprouting broccoli is such a treat.

A ban on confectionery, crisps and fizzy drinks being provided in schools looks certain to begin in September following the publication of advice to ministers by the new School Food Trust yesterday.The food industry has been lobbying to water down tough proposals on school food put out for consultation by the Department for Education and Skills last autumn.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

A scientist who left the lab after 15 years to take up sausage-making has been crowned a sausage supremo - just six months after switching careers. Molecular biologist Jon West said he uses some of his scientific expertise to create his award-winning sausages at The Art of Meat in Cambridge.

Organic baby food may be high in sugar and low in essential nutrients such as iron and protein in comparison with non-organic varieties, a study by Which? suggests. Regulations governing the labelling and content of baby food were introduced last year, but some organic products contained up to three times as much sugar as was considered “a lot” for adult foods by the Food Standards Agency, the study in the consumer organisation’s publication found.

Traces of a carcinogenic chemical have been found in soft drinks at eight times the level permitted in drinking water, it was revealed last night. Tests conducted on 230 drinks on sale in Britain and France have identified high levels of benzene, a compound known to cause cancer, according to the Food Standards Agency. There is a legal limit of one part per billion of benzene in British drinking water. The latest tests revealed levels of up to eight parts per billion in some soft drinks.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

There is a scene in Super Size Me, the documentary about McDonald's, in which its maker, Morgan Spurlock, inflicts what looks like a killer blow to the brand's image. Spurlock has had nothing but McDonald's food and drink for nearly a month and his medical tests are alarming his doctor. "Your liver has turned to pate," he warns, urging Spurlock to stop eating McDonald's at once or risk death.Confirmation that such bad publicity has wounded the world's largest fast food chain appeared to come this week with the company's admission that it is to close 25 UK branches. Denis Hennequin, president of McDonald's Europe, has admitted that the company has been struggling in the UK in the face of a consumer backlash.